Page 30 - Train to Pakistan

O letter, let my lover learn
How the fires of separation burn.

When the girl had finished her song, Hukum Chand flung a five-rupee note on
the carpet. The girl and the musicians bowed their heads. The hag picked up the

money and put it in her wallet, proclaiming: ‘May you ever rule. May your pen
write hundreds of thousands. May …’
The singing began again. Hukum Chand poured himself a stiff whisky and

drank it in one gulp. He wiped his moustache with his hand. He did not have the
nerve to take a good look at the girl. She was singing a song he knew well; he
had heard his daughter humming it:

In the breeze is flying
My veil of red muslin
Ho Sir, Ho Sir.

Hukum Chand felt uneasy. He took another whisky and dismissed his
conscience. Life was too short for people to have consciences. He started to beat
time to the song by snapping his fingers and slapping his thighs to each ‘Ho Sir,

Ho Sir.’
Twilight gave way to the dark of a moonless night. In the swamps by the
river, frogs croaked. Cicadas chirped in the reeds. The bearer brought out a

hissing paraffin lamp which cast a bright bluish light. The frame of the lamp
threw a shadow over Hukum Chand. He stared at the girl who sat sheltered from
the light. She was only a child and not very pretty, just young and unexploited.

Her breasts barely filled her bodice. They could not have known the touch of a
male hand. The thought that she was perhaps younger than his own daughter
flashed across his mind. He drowned it quickly with another whisky. Life was

like that. You took it as it came, shorn of silly conventions and values which
deserved only lip worship. She wanted his money, and he… well. When all was
said and done she was a prostitute and looked it. The silver sequins on her black

sari sparkled. The diamond in her nose glittered like a star. Hukum Chand took
another drink to dispel his remaining doubts. This time he wiped his moustache
with his silk handkerchief. He began to hum louder and snapped his fingers with

a flourish.
One film song followed another till all the Indian songs set to tunes of tangos
and sambas that Hukum Chand knew were exhausted.